Saturday's Circle of Hands gathering was rather thin on the ground, but never mind. The event lasted from 9pm-1am, regardless.

We were joined by Paul McDermott, author of Johnny Dupl'eau; 2e0dtoeric, author of Five Short Stories; hazeldixon, whose short story Acid Rain Rocks features in the anthology Desolate Places; chaptertwo, who is new to writing; xfangs_upx, who writes fanfic; and Katie, who also writes fanfic.

Subjects discussed ranged from our latest writing projects to the correct colour of Jared Leto's eyes. Spike Milligan, snoring cats, irritating computers and (in accordance with C of H tradition) chocolate were also mentioned.

The plasterer has been! (Yes, this is a change of subject...) Now we've got a brown rectangle of damp plaster where a door once stood. Before we moved into this house, two small rooms had been knocked into one. However, the job had not been properly thought-out or finished, as there were two doors, almost side by side, leading into the same room. We decided to block one up and free up wall space - hence the plasterer, today.

I've now got a title for the Sci-Fi story which is set on the Moon - The Arms of Nuit. I've not finished tweaking it yet, but at the moment it stands at 3,500 words.

Question:- Why do we call them "the Moon", "the Earth" and "the Sun", but we don't say "the Jupiter" or "the Pluto"?

Cat and her father (my brother-in-law) were here on Tuesday. Emily was thrilled that her adopted playmate was here twice in one week. On Sundays, when Cat's due to arrive, Emily sits waiting for her. Once Cat's here, Emily won't leave her alone, demanding cuddles and games of tug-o-war with her beloved rubber duck or Oinky Pig (a rubber pig which makes a loud "Oink!" noise when chomped). Anyway, Tony had his ears washed; Emily insisted upon it.

Yaay! We have clean carpets!

This is thanks to our new Dyson. That it even vacuums is in itself an improvement on our old machine. Hence the purchase of this new one, unsurprisingly. It’s light, easy to manoeuvre, simple to empty out, and its design means you don’t keep getting tangled-up with the power cord. Oh, and it comes with a five-year guarantee, which sounds promising.

These, too, are vast improvements on the conked-out contraption, which weighed a ton, ignored dog hair (not good in our house!) and spewed dust in your face whenever it was emptied. And it had a stupid filter which always got bunged-up. And if you tried to vacuum anything bigger than a molecule, the wretched machine jammed. It spent nearly as much time upside down having its entrails investigated as it spent in actual use. Right now, it’s festering outside, awaiting delivery to our local recycling centre.

In contrast to staring at the floor, I’ve been looking at the Moon. Moon maps, to be exact. I’ve never looked at one before. In fact, I’ve not taken a great deal of notice of the Moon beyond a casual acknowledgment of it as a pale magnetic lump in Space.

Have you ever looked up at the night sky and acknowledged just how tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiny you are?

Try it sometime.

Anyway, the reason for all this Moon-gazing is the short Sci-Fi story I’m currently working on. It hasn’t got a title yet. And there’re no prizes for guessing the location. Much Sci-Fi tends to be written by actual scientists, whereas I can just about identify a Bunsen burner…. Does the phrase "wing it" mean much to you?!!